Ordu is a picturesque city between the mountains and the Black Sea, where a quarter of the world’s hazelnuts grow. So when an untimely frost killed the budding flowers in trees across the region, Turkish hazelnut prices more than doubled, and the world’s largest hazelnut buyer, Ferrero SpA, had to raise the price of Nutella….
OK, the threat of a worldwide Nutella shortage may not be an existential crisis, but….the story of how researchers are working to fix this problem might point the way toward shoring up the entire food system.
It just so happens that there’s another part of the world, the East Coast of the United States, where the conditions are just right for hazelnut trees except for one giant problem: Eastern filbert blight, a fungus that slowly strangles hazelnuts.
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For two decades, a team of scientists have been working to give hazelnut trees the genetic tools to fight off this blight. After some success, they’re beginning to release fungus-resistant trees to farmers….Repeat this process with a hundred crops, and you’ll have a much more sustainable food system.
Read full, original article: HOW TO PROTECT OUR FOOD FROM A CRAZY CLIMATE? CONSIDER THE HAZELNUT
